Evil Queen (TROS)
Regina, also known as the Evil Queen is Snow White's stepmother. The whole Enchanted Forest thought she was vain and power obsessed, but she really only wanted to free her lover, Mira, from her magic mirror. History In the Enchanted Forest, Regina was born to the sorceress Cora and her husband Prince Henry, the fourth son of King Xavier. Growing up, Regina was terrorized by her tyrannical mother, who used magic whenever it served her. On her sixteenth birthday, a small celebration was held in Regina's honor. Among her many gifts, Regina was presented with a beautiful mirror crafted by a renowned mirror-maker and his eighteen year-old son, named Mira. Taking an instant liking to Regina, Mira pursued her and managed to court her. The two bonded over their shared inability to please their parents; while Regina seemed unable to live up to her mother's highbrow standards, Mira did not want to follow in his father's footsteps and instead aspired to be a traveling poet, minstrel, and bard. Over the next two years, Regina and Mira fall madly in love, but Regina opts to keep their relationship a secret, since Cora has high expectations for her daughter. At some point, Mira gifts Regina a hand mirror after she is heavily criticized by her mother, who makes several negative remarks about her physical appearance. He stated that it will allow Regina to see herself the way he has always seen her, as the fairest in all the land. On the eve of her eighteenth birthday, Regina outrides her horseback instructor and meets Mira for a covert rendezvous. He suggests they have a romantic outing at Firefly Hill, but Regina deckines since Cora is expecting her for afternoon tea in an hour. A dissapointed Mira decides to instead ask Regina to marry him right there, but before he can do so, both hear a scream from a young girl on a runaway horse. Unknown to them, this girl is the princess Snow White, King Leopold's daughter, whose horse Cora had intentionally spelled in order for Regina to rescue her. Acting quickly, Regina catches up to the girl's horse and pulls her to safety. King Leopold, as Cora wished for, is so impressed by Regina's feat that he wishes to formerly thank her. Cora humbly suggests that King Leopold simply grace them with his company for the night and attends Regina's birthday celebration the follwing day. During Regina's birthday feast, Cora spikes King Leopold's chalice with the "curse of the empty-hearted" and he promptly proposes to Regina before all the guests. Speechless, she looks to her father for help, but he says nothing as Cora accepts on her behalf. Running to Mira later that night, Regina begs him to take her away. He agrees by giving her the ring he wanted to propose to her with early, and as they kiss, Snow White witnesses them and runs away in sadness. Regina catches up to the princess, explaining she cannot marry her father because the love she and Mira have is true. She then swears Snow White to secrecy about the relationship. The girl, however, later confesses everything to Cora in a misguided attempt to keep Regina from losing her mother as she did with hers. On the night she and Mira were prepared to leave, Cora used magic to stop them. While Cora was furious her daughter was willing to throw being queen for a mere commoner, Regina attested that Mira makes her truly happy. Cora finally relents, seemingly coming to an understanding, and she reconciles with Regina. Mira, sympathetic to Cora's parental role, expresses gratitude for allowing her daughter's happiness. Cora, taking it upon herself to do what she believes is best for Regina, rips out Mira's heart and crushes it. In horror, Regina cradles Mira's body and weeps in despair as her mother insists true happiness will come from the power she will have as the future queen of the largest, most wealthy kingdom in the land. Sometime after this, a stoic Regina has a wedding dress fitting when Snow White mentions Cora is a good mother for understanding her and Mira's love for each other. When questioned, Snow White hesitantly admits telling Cora about Mira due to her fear that Regina would lose her mother as she herself had. Turning away from the girl, Regina reacts in shock, but she regains calm to spare Snow White's feelings. Regina lies, saying Mira ran away, but that she is happy to marry King Leopold and become her stepmother. Once Snow White exits, Cora praises Regina credit for living up to her expectations. Suspiciously, Regina questions her mother about purposely causing the princess' horse to run wild so she would save her and gain King Leopold's attention, but Cora claims she had nothing to do with it. Walking off, Regina's expression contorts into anger as she expresses regrets over not letting Snow White die on her horse. Later that night, Regina woefully gazes into the looking-glass Mira and his father crafted for her. Overwhelmed with sadness, Regina contemplates ending her life until she hears a voice come from inside the mirror. To her amazement, Mira's reflection appeared in the mirror. While Mira lost his corporeal form, his soul did not fully surrender to "the other side", allowing him to continue his existence in Regina's mirror. Fearful of what her mother would do if she discovered Mira's fate, Regina told no one of her "magic mirror". As the wedding day approaches, Regina desperately tried to flee with the imprisoned Mira on horseback, only to be stopped ruthlessly by Cora. Following a suggestion from her father, Regina stole her mother's spell book in the hopes she could find something to help Mira. Instead she unknowingly used it to summon its creator, Rumplestiltskin. Somewhat aware of Regina's prediciment, he offered to help her get rid of Cora, though Regina is against physically harming anyone, so she is given a magic traveling mirror. Rumplestiltskin instructs her to give Cora a little push into the mirror, which will then send her to another world. She questions what he wants in return, but he just vaguely confirms that someday she will do him a favor. On the eve of her wedding, Cora steps into Regina's bedchamber and notices the looking-glass. As Regina looks into both of their reflections, Cora instructs her daughter on how to rule and to prepare to murder King Leopold so as to seize the kingdom for themselves. A horrified Regina is disgusted by her mother's words, and as she moves to give her mother a shove into the mirror, Cora magically restrains her. Cora chastises Regina for the attempt to get rid of her as Mira materializes in his glass prison to give her encouragement. Fueled by anger, Regina breaks free of the restraints and magically knocks Cora into the mirror, which then shatters into pieces. Free at last, Rumplestiltskin then magically appeares and congratulates Regina. She tries to return his spellbook to him and claims magic isn't for her, but Rumplestiltskin is more interested to know how it felt to use magic. Grudgingly, Regina acknowledges that she loved it, which is all the more reason to stay away from it. She also fears becoming as magic obsessed as her mother, but Rumplestiltskin promises that is entirely up to her and not to shun magic so quickly, as it could enable her to do so much. Intrigued, Regina figured that maybe with magic and as queen she would have access to the resources needed to help her free Mira. Soon afterwards, with the hopes of reviving Mira, Regina magically enchanted his dead body to remain perfectly preserved. After marrying King Leopold, Regina is allowed by her new husband to grow a single apple tree in the castle garden. She also brought precious little of her own material possessions to her new home, except for the mirror her lover was trapped in and thus took excessive precautions to protect it, much to the confusion of the castle staff. The marriage is of course not one of love, as Regina still cared for her old love, Mira, and her life as queen caused her immeasurable unhappiness, as she could not bear to witness Snow White live such a charmed life after what she inadvertently did to Mira. Throughout her marriage to the king, Regina was also forced to make up constant excuses so as to stave of King Leopold's romantic advances, unaware of the fact he was under her mother's love spell. At some point in their marriage, Leopold gifts Regina a diamond encrusted brooch to show his affection for her, with the brooch having previously been a gift that he gave to his first wife Eva. Regina, however, doesn't care for the gift and regards it with little respect. During her apprenticeship to Rumplestiltskin, Regina had great difficulty developing her skills in magic, subconsciously fearful of it due to her upbringing. During one such magic lesson, Regina is instructed by Rumplestiltskin to immobilize a black unicorn, which she manages to accomplish. However, when he orders for the animal's heart to be torn out, she balks, since doing so only reminds her of what Cora did to Mira. Disappointed, Rumplestiltskin demands that she come to terms with whatever is holding her back from learning this kind of magic. That night while conversing with Mira through the looking-glass, she gazes longingly at his preserved body and, while comforted by his remarks that she is still the fairest of them all, longed to feel his embrace. The follwing week, Regina preps for another magic lesson in the Dark One's castle, but Rumplestiltskin asks what is it that she truly wants. Regina reveals that she wants to know if magic can resurrect the dead, though he claims it is impossible, a portal-jumper, Jefferson, says he knows someone from another world that can perform such a feat. She agrees to give him a royal pass to travel freely in her kingdom in exchange for transporting the person to the Enchanted Forest. After meeting the "wizard", or doctor, Victor, Regina allows him to inspect the quality of Mira's body, which he finds is in good condition for the operation. Since he needs a strong heart for surgery, she presents Victor with the vault containing her mother's collection of hearts where he picks one. One stormy night, Regina and Jefferson wait outside as Victor attempts the procedure on Mira inside a tent. Regretfully, he informs her that the resurrection was a failure. The news devastated Regina and that very night Cora's curse on King Leopold had begun to show negative consequences: Leopold attempted to rape Regina when she rejected his continual advances. Managing to incapacitate him, Regina is hardned by the event and in retaliation, Regina begins to slowly posion King Leopold in secrecy in order to keep him weak and more or less bedridden. By the next day, King Leopold has little memory of his attempted assault on his second wife and Regina makes drastic changes after resolving to do whatever it takes to ressurect her true love. She witnesses Rumplestiltskin teaching magic to a new apprentice, Trish, and she proves herself the more worthy student by ripping out the girl's heart and crushing it. With her new mindset, Regina focused all her attention on freeing Mira and grew to be a powerful sorceress. During her quest to free Mira from his glass prison, Regina used magic and the kingdom's vast wealth to maintain her youth and beauty for when she'd finally managed to revive Mira. Unfortunately, Mira started to become mentally unhinged overtime while trapped within the mirror experiencing severe boughts of amnesia and dementia; his condition progressed to the point he forgot his own name and identity. Consequently, Regina became miserable and extremely depressed over her lover's condition. Years later, King Leopold questioned Regina's purpose in redirecting so much of the kingdom's funds for her own personal needs. Coming to the conclusion that as long as King Leopold lived she couldn't fully utilize all the kingdom's resources to help Mira, Regina upped the severity of her poison and when her husband inevitably passed away, all assumed he was striken with a mysterious illness.http://onceuponatime.wikia.com/wiki/Regina_Mills#Evil%20Queen References